About

Hello, I am Rebecca, the face behind the brand...

I am a wife and mum who loves to sew, bake & create, almost as much as I love the Lord!

Grace and Salt ink developed from my passion for reading the word and engaging in creative worship with my journaling Bible.

The name “Grace & Salt ink” is inspired by Colossians 4v6 “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person” [ESV].

Want to know the long version of the Grace & Salt ink story?

As we
approached the end of “maternity leave" and my NCT friends started to head
back to work I was left still unclear what work would look like for me now I
was a mother. So I started praying. Never one to aim low, I told God I
would like a job where I could be creative, work around my daughter (still being
at home with her) and I wanted to do something to bring people closer to Him...
I thought maybe I was asking too much, but asked anyway because I know our
Heavenly Father is an extravagant giver! Yet, I had no idea when I started
praying how much God would answer that prayer and more. With my job I am
constantly creative, I get to pray for people all over the world and hear such
wonderful stories. Join in celebrating friendships hitting milestones, relationships
blossoming, sisters bonding... I get to spend my ‘working hours’ praying as I
create and I LOVE IT!!

Grace and Salt ink was born from both these prayers and my experiences with
creative worship in my journaling Bible. In September 2014 I was on
Instagram and came across a photograph of a Bible that appeared to have a large
space down the outside edge of the page, which had been filled with scrapbooking
materials to create something beautiful with a verse from the page. When I read
the comments I discovered that it was a journaling Bible, when I googled that I
came across an amazing blog where someone was doing similar - going to town
with paint, stamps, stickers, die cuts and pastels to turn Bible pages into
amazing pieces of creative worship. I was sold on the idea instantly and went straight to see if I could find a journaling Bible in the UK. I have often
wanted to underline and highlight in my Bible but always been scared to, it
seemed somehow disrespectful. Yet here is a Bible designed specifically for
just that, with an extra column for notes – a dream come true! My journaling
Bible has totally revolutionized my personal devotion time. I tend to read
through a full page; highlighting/underlining things that I want to
specifically remember or really resonate with me. When I reach the end of the
page I will take what has stood out to me most, moved me most, spoken to me
most and hand letter it down the full length of the ‘notes column’. I may do
this in pen and add some paint splatter or it may be I add some alphabet
stickers to create a more mixed media piece. At the start I mainly used stamps
or alphabet stickers – but as I grew more confident in what I was doing I settled into my own style that is more weighted towards hand lettering. The
time spent focusing on the verse as I letter it, is a time of reflection and
meditation on the words, helping them really sink deep into my heart. I really
enjoyed the process and it became a bit of a joke in our house, any time I had
to myself I would curl up with my journaling Bible and then I would hear my
husband say to our daughter “Where’s Mummy? What do you think she’s doing? Do
you think she’s with her Bible again? Yes, here she is, with her Bible again!”

Colossians 4:6
“Let your conversations be always full of
grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” This
verse really hit me as I read through Colossians – so when I saw there was a
big space at the end of the book I lettered this verse. I had a lot of comments
come in over Instagram about this illustration, people saying how they would
love a print of it. Which became the start of my business and is the
inspiration behind the name “Grace and Salt ink”.

The vision
behind the business is to help people to surround themselves in the word. In
the six months between me getting my journaling Bible and starting the business
I had seen a huge impact in my life from reading my Bible so much more. I
wanted to help people immerse themselves in the word of God and experience this
for themselves. Journaling my Christian walk is something I was only introduced
to in my mid-twenties but now I strongly advocate. It helps me process what I
have heard/read, see the journey God is taking me on, reflect on things as well
as keep track of prophesies received, prayers answered… As it is a journey I
try to encourage others in, so it seemed quite natural to create scripture
based journals at the heart of my business. I wanted to keep products
affordable, so almost anyone who wanted to buy one of my journals could. With
this in mind one of my first products, which is probably still my biggest
seller, was the pocket prayer journal. Pocket-sized means it is easy to carry
around with you anywhere, and hand stamped to allow low production costs with
the option of adding personalisation with a hand lettered name. At the other
end of the journal spectrum is the large hand lettered journal, which is hand
lettered with any verse the customer would like. There are other journaling
Bible related products and more recently I have started making leather wraps to
bind multiple pocket journals together to carry around with you, which has been
an interesting, fun, development and progression for the business.

Inspired by
another verse in Colossians, 3:23 “Whatever
you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for man", customer
service has always been central to my business. I decided I would put as much
love, effort and attention in to the smallest order as to a large order. I want
to make sure everyone feels special and is really blessed by their order –
even it’s arrival. It is the reason I try and hand letter and paint splatter all
packages.

I have been
amazed and overjoyed by the response Grace and Salt ink has received. I have
been blessed to have people order my journals from all around the world and
share snippets of their stories with me. I love that I get to soak in the word
as I letter verses onto the journals whilst praying for it’s new owner.

[Taken from Rebecca's interview in Wider World is the magazine of Presbyterian Women Ireland, December 2015]

NB: Because of the nature of my business key values - I will not letter curse words, derogatory words, racist terms or words that I have a personal conviction against as a follower of Jesus. Thank you for understanding! XO